Faxanadu

Faxanadu is a side scrolling action role playing game (action RPG). The player guides the hero through a screen-by-screen series of fields, towns, and dungeons. The hero can walk, jump, and climb ladders that are all typical characteristics of a platform game. Along the way, he may also purchase usable items with gold, equip and use bladed weapons against enemies, wear armor, and cast magic projectiles. In addition, he can access information regarding the game's events by speaking with townsfolk or by consulting other sources.

The limits of physical damage the hero can sustain from enemies is tracked by a life bar, and the magical power he can exert is tracked by a magic bar. These are listed on the top of the screen along with total experience, gold amount, time (for items with a timed duration), and the currently held item.

The player-controlled protagonist of Faxanadu is a wanderer who returns home. While the Japanese version allows the player to choose the name of this wanderer, in all other versions he is named "Nello". The game begins when he approaches Eolis, his hometown, after an absence to find it in disrepair and virtually abandoned. Worse still, the town is under attack by Dwarves. The Elven king explains that the Elves' fountain water, their life source, has been stopped and all other remaining water has been poisoned and provides the protagonist with 1500 gold, the game's currency, to prepare for his journey to uncover the cause.

As the story unfolds, it is revealed that Elves and Dwarves lived in harmony among the World Tree until The Evil One emerged from a fallen meteorite. The Evil One then transformed the Dwarves into monsters against their will and made them hostile towards the Elves. The Dwarf King, Grieve, swallowed his magical sword before he was transformed, hiding it in his own body to prevent The Evil One from acquiring it. It is only with this sword that The Evil One can be destroyed.

Faxanadu was developed by Hudson Soft. It is a spin-off of Nihon Falcom's computer game Xanadu (1985), part of the Dragon Slayer role-playing video game series. In a testimony by Masayuki Kato, the founder of Nihon Falcom, the game originated from a personal request by Yuji Kudo, the found of Hudson, who gave Kato a kibori kuma and asked him to grant Hudson the rights for the console port of Xanadu, Falcom's most successful game at the time. Namco also contacted Kato for the rights, but they were already sold off to Hudson.

The title is a portmanteau of "fa-" and Xanadu, with the former derived from its releasing platform Family Computer, the Japanese name of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Kato stated the title change was due to trademark issues.

On release, Japanese critics noted Faxanadu bears little resemblance to the original computer Xanadu. Four reviewers from Famicom Tsūshin all discussed the drastic differences between Faxanadu and Xanadu. One reviewer called Faxanadu an action RPG in style of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and preferred Xanadu, while another preferred Faxanadu because he found Xanadu too gloomy by comparison. A reviewer from Famicom Hisshoubon said Faxanadu is polished as an action game, but it would have been better if it tried harder to replicate the original Xanadu. Family Computer Magazine argued Faxanadu failed to live up to the computer game because it deviated too much from the original.

The graphical and audio presentation were well-received. VideoGames & Computer Entertainment said the graphics vary "from average to gorgeous", and described the huge hidden castles and the corridors into the World Tree as "highly detailed and colorful". The music was also praised. Famicom Tsūshin's two reviewers said its huge text size and the use of both hiragana and kanji made it easier to read the dialogues.